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Musings on Music

When I restarted this blog, my initial plan was to write about a musical experience. Something else needed to be said first, however. Actually I've been struggling with whether or not my musings on music and live concerts was worth reading anyway, and a pause before leaping was a good thing. In the end, I've decided that my need to write trumps whether or not anyone else reads, cares, or agrees. It is worth writing if only because that is the only way I know how to make sense of my own peripatetic thoughts.

I wrote the above paragraph 10 days ago and my thoughts are still circling. I am not sure that I ever really wanted to write about the music itself or my reactions to the music. In that sense, time is a gift, and the fact that these things still hold a strong place in my thoughts is relevant. So, let's get started.

In late May there were two performances, memories of which are still dancing around in my head, nearly a month after the fact.

The first was the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra's May concert which included Dvorak's New World Symphony and a new commission by Derrick Skye titled "Between Suns: A concerto for African Drums and Orchestra". I really did not know what to expect, but I was excited about the prospects going in. The truly fabulous concert was far greater than my hopes. Derrick Skye was unfamiliar to me, but I have since listened to some of his music on YouTube and seriously hope that a recording will be made of this piece. Between Suns is a true concerto, a true melding of the two genres of music, not just a symphonic work with occasional drum cadenzas. The music felt comfortable spanning both idioms, tethered to neither really, although I have friends who felt it strayed perhaps a bit too far outside of the Western Classical tradition. I disagree.

Yes, the music pushes at the boundaries and constraints of the western classical tradition but it comes nowhere close to abandoning it. At least not from my understanding. But I tend to think we can all, myself included, sometimes get lost in our own assumptions and biases. And I have long been attracted to music, art, ideas, that push at boundaries and make me think in new ways.

In Between Suns I heard passages reminiscent of Copeland, and even Beethoven in the second movement. The Beethoven reference, as I learned later, was intentional, since Beethoven used this same rhythm, which is an ancient drumming rhythm which crosses cultural boundaries and is thousands of years old. Beethoven himself was tapping into something ancient in human experience, blurring categories. Other parts of the work reminded me of medieval polyphony and I was charmed, intellectually challenged, and moved by complex poly-rhythmic passages and remarkable shifts and changes in the music. It was not just in the drumming and the skill of the drummers that thrilled me, but the musicians in the orchestra as well with the complex and nuanced ways the musicians played together, pushing outside normal parameters. Some of those passages, some of those moods, still haunt me today. This is not just a month-old memory however, as the concert was rebroadcast on a local radio station a week ago, and will be rebroadcast again in September. But I dearly hope that this is a piece that will be recorded, and that I will be able to hear again, to experience it and understand it more fully.

As mentioned previously that concert closed with Dvorak's Symphony #9, "From the New World" and it was a warm and wonderfully engaging performance. It was the perfect way to close out this concert, urgent and exciting where it needed to be, calm and uplifting in other moments. It was as nice a performance as I could ever hope to attend, the perfect melding of art, musicianship, and the energy present in the concert hall. There was a moment, very brief, where one trumpet was just barely off, a quarter breathe perhaps, and it sounded like the trumpets were fighting, but the whole thing couldn't have lasted more than a second or two, and I was once again lost in the music. I've tried to let my critical brain rest when I attend concerts, but this captured my attention. I decided it was fitting in some way, that even the stress of that brief discordance celebrated the experience of live music, of disparate perspectives and voices coming together, not always in perfect harmony, but working toward it. I relaxed and happily just enjoyed the moment, the melding of old and new, a constantly evolving understanding of "New World".

The second performance that has stuck in my head was Knoxville Opera's performance of "Stuck Elevator", and opera based on an event that actually happened in 2005, when a food delivery man from the Bronx was stuck in an elevator for 81 hours. As is true of all good stories, and all good operas, the actual events merely served as a stepping stone to a greater story. The opera is short, 81 minutes for an 81 hour ordeal, and it beautifully and emotionally explores suffering, love, loss, the struggles of families and peoples to survive, to emigrate, to seek betterment for their families, to navigate pain and loss. I felt the experience was almost too short, but I know others who felt it too long. Some of the passages and scenes were complex, challenging for the audience, even risqué in places, blurring musical constructs and styles in ways that were beautifully handled by the fabulous cast. It was an opera that pushed the assumption of the audience, questioning our very ideas of the nature of opera, of musical theatre, even of our expectations and biases in life. Part comedy, part tragedy, part fever dream, the quiet ending was almost shocking in its simplicity. After this emotion-laden drama, the door opens and our protagonist, Guang, simply slipping away into the night, lost to history. But not to my dreams.

I suppose, since so much time has passed, I cannot write without also mentioning the musical event that occurred between that weekend of fascinating new works and the actual appearance of these words on a computer screen (page?). I went to New York to see "The Queen of Spades" by Peter Illych Tchaikovsky at the Met. I had a wonderful evening, enjoying the opera very much, with no regrets, even though I felt the performance was flawed. The music was lushly bewitching and perfectly set the scene as the opera played out through what seemed like a series of disconnected stories. I thought the female voices were outstanding although the men got the "best" songs, not that the men were shabby either. In fact the singing and the music all made me happy. That disconnect was still present however. There seemed little chemistry between the male and female leads, and although I could enjoy the music in a very intellectual and abstract way, emotionally the performance did not bridge the lack of continuity. It is true that my mind tends to wander at some point during most performances. Perhaps wandered slightly more than usual here. I could only imagine how much fun Tchaikovsky (and his librettist) must have had playing with the music for this piece which also seems to mock human frailties and the subjects of so many operas. The idea tickled my fancy, although I cannot say it will resonate in my mind as deeply as the two previous performances, but it was still a fabulous evening, and I am glad I went.

But now the summer season is upon us, and in my life that usually means less music. Much as I love concerts I am happy to rest.

June 14, 2025
A Quick Jaunt to New York, Part Two

Apologies up front for the delay in this post.

And now onto the actual reason for my trip.

I met a friend, and we went to hear this concert. I was looking forward to hearing the pianist, who plays beautifully, and I am fairly familiar with the Glass Piano Quintet, which I have heard live a few Times now, as well as on its recorded version with Brooklyn Rider. I was not familiar with the other two works, although I am aware that there is a recent recording of Paul Barnes performing the Victoria Bond work, Illuminations on Byzantine chant. I did not research or listen to the two works I did not know. I kind of like to go in to concerts blind and see how I react to the music. Perhaps not sophisticated, or educated, but this is how it is.

The concert was held at St Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and shrine, at the World Trade Center, which I would have assumed was glass, but actually it is marble. As with the music, I didn't read about the church before going either. Perhaps I should have, perhaps not. I am often torn when traveling about the need to do research and learn what I "should" see, hear, think or do, and my own contrarian nature, my determination to be guided loosely, but to see what I see and learn what I learn. I am certain there are gains and losses involved in both approaches. Anyway, below is my photograph of the church as we arrived for the concert. I thought it was an interestingly beautiful structure, both sublime and yet also, in certain lights, or in its absence, quiet and almost strict and subdued. I am sure there is more to think on there.

The space was small, and there were many chairs. This photograph is of the piano, and the interior of the church from my seat on the front row.

As you might surmise, we were very close to the music. This was an excellent position for the two solo piano pieces. Paul Barnes, plays beautifully and is one of my favorite pianists. Watching and listening to him is a feast, both aurally and visually. I swear even his hands, his fingers, express emotion as they play. The experience is mesmerizing and entrancing.

Of the two piano pieces, the work by J.A.C. Redford was the one that moved me the most, filled with a deep emotionality that felt simultaneously both calming and uplifting. This listener felt enveloped in a sense of a deep slowing breath, with momentary bursts of awe.

This is where you are lucky. When I first started writing this post, I wished I could hear it again, wished I could tell you more about the work itself, but it remained elusive. However, during the time this post was delayed due to my post-holiday bout with illness, Paul Barnes released a video of the performance of this work, a performance I can link to here. (below).

I still enjoy listening to this piece. I don't know that I was familiar at all with Redford, except that when I looked him up following the concert I learned that I am in fact familiar with a surprising amount of his music, although not enough. I will need to seek his work out.

Now, because I am being fair, I will also include a link to a video of a portion of the Victoria Bond. This was also a lovely work, and I do recall thinking how well Bond writes for the piano, how much I wanted to play part of the work, to feel the music beneath my fingers, even though I have not played for decades and do not play well. I found the work intellectually interesting, and at times even exciting. For this listener however, the Bond piece satisfied intellectually, but resonated less deeply on an emotional level. Still, it was a satisfying pairing, two pieces of music, both addressing issues of faith, that appealed to very different parts of what it means to be human.

For the Phillip Glass Annunciation Quintet, the string quartet was sandwiched between the piano and the first row of chairs. I was sitting in almost knee to knee in proximity to violinist Pauline Kim and it was a marvelous experience. Being this close to the musicians did not offer the best position for hearing the work itself as a whole, as much of the sound essentially lifted above us, but the structure of the entire piece was present and it gave a detailed experience of one part of the conversation that made up the music. I could read both violinist's music, I could hear both violinists clearly and relate what I saw of their music to their technique and the sound as a part of the whole. It was like being contained in a bubble inside the work itself. The performance was fascinating and engrossing and intimate in a way I hadn't yet experienced in a concert, and quartet music is, by its very nature, intimate. This was very different from my previous experience of the Glass Quintet. I was blown away, fascinated and enchanted by the performance, the playing of the group as a whole yes, but particularly the violinist as I felt encased in a subset of the world being created musically. I've always felt that the best chamber music is always a closely held conversation. This felt much like being caught in the midst of the music itself.

Admittedly it took me a good while just to integrate my experience of the concert with some kind of return to "real life". I was kind of lost in a kind of interspace for the rest of the evening. We attended a lovely dinner with the artists. I'm never the most social with people I have just met, really preferring to listen and I loved listening to everyone around me. But I was also still in my musical cloud as well. Not that I see any loss in that. The entire evening was a fabulous experience.

January 9, 2024
Meditation

I've been off-balance, wondering how to write about happy frivolous things in a world that feels far away from happy and frivolous. Even as I write that I know it is not so simple and that frivolity must exist even in the face of despair, love in the face of grief and great pain. That statement feels like nothing, a platitude, a feather in the wind. And yet that same dichotomy exists in my own life in the balancing of the despair, the pain and grief of the world, with the very present joys and consolations of the everyday interactions that fill my days.

Yet despite the peace of my own bubble, here it is laid out before me, a slap in the face, a reminder to my kinder nature that wishes to believe that we have evolved into a kinder species. But no: our brutal history, a history it seems we never quite escape, even sometimes within ourselves — the urge to meet rage with rage, to fling more pain on top of our own, to cause hurt when we are hurting — is ever present, and apparently still uncontrolled. Of course much of the horror is driven by greed and lust for power, by those who would fuel division. Pain and horror sells, grabs our attention, diverts us from the good. The people of the world do not deserve this.

When I am distraught and distracted, I am drawn to music and to art. Both remind me that life is a double-edged sword, that joy heals pain. I despair for humanity, and yet I see awe in the face of a baby and smile, I watch the new buds of an azalea unfurl as the dry leaves of autumn swirl about them. I know that I can offer arms of comfort but I do not always know how. And yet, for all the power of our darker underbelly, we also have a gift for healing, for transcendence. I cannot resolve the dichotomy of human existence, but sometimes I think that artists, and I include musicians in this, point me in the right direction.

At the end of September I attended a chamber concert by the Aubade Trio that was lovely indeed. Yet there was one piece that stole my heart, still holds my heart, a piece by Ernest Bloch — concertina for flute, viola and piano. In those innocent days in late September the pieces felt joyous, prayerful, full of laughter. Today it still feels joyous but my awareness has shifted slightly. At the time that music danced in my head, and combined in my thoughts with an artist's exhibit I had seen the previous week, of waves and water, an immersive experience. Those two sensory experiences still swirl in my heart, and although I don't see them differently per se, the way they resonate in my soul has shifted.

I cannot exactly hear the music as it was played that evening. There are recordings. I've listened to two versions streamed on Amazon, and two on YouTube. Neither is quite the same, but that is the way of music, interpretation is always present, the conversational understanding between the artist performing the music and the artist who composed the framework. But listening to variations reminds me of what I have heard. Perhaps that is a curse, the specific nature of my memory. No other performance is the same as the one by the Aubade trio. It plagues me in concerts sometimes, to remember specific sequences of notes, of sounds, but it also rewards me with new insights. Besides, even if the Aubade trio performed that work today, it is unlikely that it would be performed exactly as it was that night in late September, and I too am different today than I was two weeks ago. There are no absolutes.

What I do know is that at the time of the concert, there were moments in the music when I was transported to moments at the Knoxville Museum of Art, where I was immersed in Jane Cassidy's piece You Never Forget The Swim. The exhibit is visual, aural, experiential. One sits in a dark room, sound from outside is muted but not absent. And one is immersed in an experience of water that is everything but the actual wetness. Water in the abstract, the spiritual basis of water. At different moments during that concert I would simultaneously be in that room, experiencing the joy of lightly rolling waves at the shore, remembering the way sometimes the light reflecting on water reminds me of the way light reflects on silk charmeuse, and through the sound of music. The concluding movement reminded me of a carnival, but the good sides of a carnival, joy and sparkling lights, the bubbles in a glass of champagne, the frothy light bubbles that sometimes appear in waves, buoyant, almost ephemeral.

Although I cannot recreate the experience of the concert, I can return to the museum, to the experience. And yet every time it is different, just as every time I am different. Sometimes it is comforting, like a warm bath or a soft caress. At other times the swirling seems out of control. For the most part I find the experience calming, elemental even, much the same way I find music calming and elemental. Both tie me to darker things. The dark side is always present, but when faced with music, or art, I am not lost in that darkness but transformed.

After my first experience of You Never Forget the Swim, this is what I wrote in my journal "caressing, stroking, smooth, comforting, enveloping, engulfing, drowning, strangling, suffocating, calming, eternal, love."

Ernest Bloch and Jane Cassidy both might be horrified by my comparisons, or not, but this is how they have been captured in my experience in this particular space and time. Each thing we create, each word we say even, these words included, once uttered, once created, flow out into the world creating new experiences beyond our control and our intent. I hope my words overall are good, but I too am human and my feelings and run the gamut of human experience.

I wish I could share the experience of Jane Cassidy's work. I highly recommend seeking her out. I can, however, include a performance of the Bloch. The first time I heard it I thought one thing. The second another. I might have found another version more prayerful, yet another more joyous. It doesn't really matter. When I listen again this morning, just before posting this, I am compelled to tears during the slow movement, and then slowly, as if the music is tickling my toes, slowly first, but just enough. And despite the tears, a smile rises and I know there is hope. There is always hope.

October 17, 2023
Speeding up and slowing down, Autumn arrives.

Sunday evening was our neighborhood picnic. The air felt distinctly autumnal on this early fall evening, the prelude to Yom Kippur, not that the two events were at all related, or that our feasting on shared dishes bore any relation to the impending fast, if indeed knowledge of that fast even registered. Yet I couldn't help but be reflective, as I flitted in and out of the crowd, occasionally intentionally on the sidelines, watching neighbors group and regroup, thinking about community and coming together — little bubbles of contact in a world that is both overcrowded with both people and things to do, and yet at the same time strangely solitary and isolating.

This year in particular the contrast between the physical season and the cultural season occupies my mind, the almost yin and yang of it, the way that we humans grow busy, filling our evenings particularly, with cultural events, as the earth itself is winding down into a time of rest. When the earth is full verdancy we are off celebrating our individual pursuits; as the light grows dim we band together, partly for comfort, but also I wonder, if partly to distract ourselves from the reminder of the inevitability of the impending darkness. We seem to forget that rest, even death, is part of the necessary cycle of life, as if, by keeping ourselves busy we can forestall its arrival.

If we keep running from event to event, from achievement to achievement, from high to high, can we outrun death? What about the necessity of repose. Nature must rest. The earth must rest. Our bodies must rest. But I am an introspective soul living in a world where external distractions are the dominant mode.

Autumn is my favorite season. But it is also the season in which I feel pulled in many directions. The arts and music scenes have geared up again, and I am happy to reconnect with friends. I could allow myself to become frenetically busy, even as my soul is yearning for and remembering rest and renewal.

Within the social whirl, I seek islands of repose. Yesterday was one such day, a day where I could spend time in the garden, hands in the earth, putting some areas to bed for the coming winter, seeding garden beds with cover crops, or perhaps with luck, a small winter garden of frost-tolerant plants. As I putter, my mind wanders and I reflect on the activities of the past week.

Although my weekend ended with the fall picnic, it began with the opening concert of the symphony season — Pictures at an Exhibition. Mussorgsky's work, as orchestrated by Maurice Ravel was the titular attraction, and the closing piece: well-performed, familiar, exciting, rousing the audience into a sense of communal high spirits. It was a good concert, well planned and well played, from the opening trumpets on the balcony as concert-goers entered the theater, a festive glass of champagne in hand. The concert opened with Adam Schoenberg's Picture Studies, based on the same structural scaffolding as Mussorgsky's work. This modern work, inspired by works in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City was a good opening choice, both thematically, but also temperamentally with its very American sense of movement and lyricism. I find Schoenberg's works to be accessible and likable, easy on ears and sentiments. This piece was no exception. and the performance was engaging and quite satisfying. A projection screen was mounted behind the orchestra, and the referenced works were featured for nine of the ten sections of the piece. I personally find that my eyes are drawn to the screen, which distracts my mind from fully attending to the music, but I suspect I am in the minority on this, and eyes can be closed, allowing the music itself full expression. Picture Studies is also a feast for the percussion section, which sustained the excited air of enthusiasm that had begun with the trumpet fanfare, would continue through the second piece, Alexander Arutiunian's Trumpet Concerto, performed by brilliant young trumpeter William Leathers, and, of course, ending with the triumphant ending of the Mussorgsky. All in all it was a rich, brightly enlivening celebration of the arts, of music, of lighting up the impending darkness, of the power of music and the gathering of community.

But that was only the denouement to my week. A couple of other events preceded the concert, of which I will only focus on one now.

On Wednesday evening I attended a performance of Cato, Joseph Addison's play, first performed in 1713, about the last days of Cato the younger. This performance was staged through a historical lens, based on a performance for George Washington's troops in 1778, a joint endeavor through several departments and UT, intended, at least in part, to further discussion on the ideas of liberty and responsibilities to community.

Admittedly I attended as much for the drama itself, for the language and ideas as much as for the idea behind the performance, the continuing discussion of the meaning of liberty. I am a bit of a restoration literature fan, and I reveled in the wonderful eighteenth century dialogue. I sometimes miss this use of language, here so artfully rendered by the actors; a play that eloquently explores ideas and responsibilities in a way that is both thought-provoking and entertaining. The play is a tragedy, and yet oftentimes comic, as are all human endeavors. I had read the play but never seen it performed, and of course we all know lines from the play, lines that have become part of our American History — "Give me liberty, or give me death" among them. I loved the expository passages, the explorations of individual liberty versus governmental tyranny, but also the explorations of the dangers of individual liberty, both covered in an abstract sense in the debates between the characters, but also quite realistically in the action of the drama itself. Logic versus emotion; republicanism vs monarchism; we still debate these same ideas today, they show up in our debates, our marches, our literature our movies…. What are our rights? And our responsibilities? And with rights do not also come responsibilities? Joseph Addison obviously thought so, as did the founding fathers of this country. And even as their understandings of liberty and even the "rights of all men" may feel narrow minded compared to our views today, they still have much to teach us. The forest remains.

And so my thoughts continue to swirl. Autumn is here. Darkness is inescapable. But the darkness itself, and our own struggle with life, the meaning of existence, the very things that make us human, is it not this very thing that drives us to make art? Is art the embodiment of this very battle with darkness, with rest, and death? Would there be art if we never knew repose? If we never fought for meaning? If we never sought the light?

September 26, 2023
Four: A reentry

I'm back!

Am I? For real this time? The difference between saying I will write and actually writing is like a giant chasm, a chasm that must be bridged, that can only be bridged by actually writing. I realize my priorities have shifted. I am not at all certain how that shift will manifest itself. And yet I can spend time trying to figure it out but not writing, or I can simply hope for the best and toss my words into the void. I'll never start unless I start, as messy as that might prove to be.

Let's begin with three weekends and four events:

First there was the Knoxville Symphony's April performance of the Mozart Requiem with the Knoxville Choral Society. Most of the audience was there for the requiem, and it was indeed beautifully performed, even one of the more enjoyable performances I have heard. The highlight of the evening, however, for me at least, was a contemporary piece by young American composer T. J. Cole, Death of the Poet. Cole had been inspired by a painting by Conrad Felixmüller titled Death of the Poet Walter Reiner, which she had seen at the Art Institute of Chicago. The painting was created as a kind of a requiem of its own, an obituary or memorial for a friend, the expressionist poet, who died of a drug overdose. The painting is shown below:

When I looked up the painting after the concert, I felt strongly that I've seen it before, although I don't believe I've ever blogged about it. Perhaps I should seek the painting out and take another look. Of course, if I do that I will also want to listen to the music again. At least there are recordings online, and I will link to one below.

Both pieces, music and painting, seem filled a sense of loss and ascendance, suitable requiem material, as well as confusion and a sense of worlds on the cusp, of one world fading away and a new one being born. Perhaps it is this overlapping sense of grief and hope, entangled together that has settled into my mind. The music and the painting seem very dreamlike to me. In the painting one doesn't really know if the artist is falling or perhaps flying, and I do think that is part of the point, as well as the use of intense colors and cubist images, of a world turned topsy turvy, despair intermingled with homey windows filled with pots of flowers. The music was very lush and poignant and yet also unsettling. I find it interesting that both works were created by artists in their 20s; both also created at times of political and social upheaval. I suspect this will be haunting my thoughts for a while.

https://soundcloud.com/tjcole/death-of-the-poet?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

The following weekend I went on a knitting retreat. It was small, we ended up with 14 women, and the focus was on brioche knitting, although I would have gone whatever the focus, as I was mostly just interested in the idea of knitting community. But I was game to up my brioche knitting skills. Now I am smitten. Prior to the retreat I was in a fairly monogamous knitting stage, with 1 project on the needles, 1 project in hibernation, and 1 project waiting to be seamed. At the end of the weekend, I had four active projects on needles. Needless to say I've been knitting a lot but nothing has yet been finished. As I write this I have three projects on the needles and two awaiting finishing. There will be finished knitting to share soon.

The time at the retreat helped me rekindle my focus and refine my priorities, both in terms of giving myself permission to allow hours to be spent exploring process without worrying about having something specific to show for any particular stretch of time, as well as giving myself permission to claim time for solitude. Yes, I was exhausted after a weekend of music at Big Ears. I was exhausted after Holy Week, and those all involved too much time spent in public spaces where I was overwhelmed with constant stimulation. But I was also exhausted by a quiet weekend with 13 other women. Before the retreat, I did not realize that even in this quiet setting, I would still require significant solitary decompression time. Although I can, in fact, tune out much of what is going on around me, I cannot block it completely. Some part of my brain is always watching, feeling, observing the minute changes in energy around me, and I need time to decompress. Without that time I have no energy for either the social or the creative. If anything, this retreat was the final seal of approval on accepting the need for not just silence but solitude.

After a calming weekend and a few days rest, I was prepared for another weekend feast for the senses.

On Friday evening I attended the opening night performance of Knoxville Opera's The Marriage of Figaro, which I felt was a complete and stunning success. A friend called it "world class" and I agree if one thinks of the production as a whole. The company pulled off that almost magical feat of creating a cohesive, emotionally rich, enveloping world within the theater. The singers were very good, some excellent. The musicians were good, the acting excellent, but mostly it all just came together in a sparkling and satisfying experience. Nothing jarred, nothing triggered that critical, comparative part of my brain. That, to my mind is always the difficult part. The best performances somehow always come together from the heart. The finest orchestra, truly world-class voices, none of this matters if everything doesn't mesh together, and I've attended far to many operas that should have been great, but which have left me bored or disappointed. Figaro has sometimes become such a part of the common experience that it fails to rise above its own history. This production rose, it danced and sparkled — Figaro reborn. I think I would call it a stunning production and one that has me yearning for more.

Then on Sunday I went to the Clarence Brown Theater's production of Hair, which I also thoroughly loved. I was too young when Hair first came out on Broadway, but I did see an amateur production of it in the mid-seventies, after we had abolished the draft, after we had finally pulled out of Vietnam, after I too had my turn shouting "Hell, no! We won't go!". Even now I look at how those changes were shaping the world, shaping my own youth, and also the world the youth of today live in and experience. The youth of 1968, the ones portrayed in this play, are the grandparents of the youth of today, the students who were performing in this play. But that sense of both harmony and communal safety, as well as connection across generations was infectious. It seemed to me like this was an apt time to reintroduce this musical to a new generation, even as I am reminded that as much as the linearity of time is a foundational principle of western culture, there is also a cyclical aspect to time and growth and human evolution.

I always want to be enchanted, to be carried away, to be connected to some essential part of human nature; all of these events enchanted me in some sense or another. In the three performances, there is a common thread, of youth, of age, of love, of loss and hope, or hope and loss (not quite the same but inextricably tied together). Even in my retreat, in the experience of coming together and later of rest is connected to this cycle. As the body needs sleep however, so to the heart, the head, the creative and intellectual spirit. It seems my weekends are not time of rest but of massive input, and when the working world returns to its tasks, I need time to slow down and take it all in.

Perhaps retirement is also a period of turning the world topsy turvy, of the hero coming home from the wars of work and success and rediscovering the simple acts of breath and life which are essential to us all.

May 3, 2023
Two Concerts and A Book, or Slowly Finding My Way Back to Words
I hit a wall when I started thinking about what I would write about if I wasn't simply posting about knitting and sewing progress. Before I knew it six weeks had passed with no resolution to my writer's block.

Today, then, I am just going to write whatever nonsense and emotional drivel is channeled through my fingers and toss it out into the world unedited. There is no help for it, as I find I have become an expert at procrastination and can distract myself with all kinds of useless pursuits in order to avoid writing.

Granted, I began the year questioning the very notion of who I am and who I wish to be. Many of my prior assumptions seem no longer valid with many pursuits simply not paying off with either joy or satisfaction commensurate with the energy extended. How could I write when I didn't even know who I was? What I did know is that I don't want this blog to be a storage place for lists: books I have read, concerts I have attended, the things I have knitted, garments I have sewn. But I haven't known how to make the transition to whatever it is that this blog is becoming. It will continue on; I am not ready to give it up.

In order to get myself over the hump it seems I need to fall back onto hold habits. I attended many concerts in January and early February, two of which resonated deeply and continue to hand my memories. I also read five books in January, all of which I enjoyed, but one of which resonated deeply. I shall fall back on these things, concerts and books, and see where that gets me.

On one evening I attended an organ recital and the Mendelssohn Sonata, No 6 in D minor, brought me to tears. Not something that usually happens to me at organ recitals. They were not tears of sadness, perhaps simply of depth of feeling. I did not know the piece, but the first two movements seemed imbued with a sense of history and the weight of belief and culture, all wrapped in warm tones and beautiful playing; the fourth movement seemed transformative, as if that same sense of history was being brought into some sort altered present.

The other concert that surprised me was a chamber music concert which I almost did not attend. The concert opened with Ethel Smyth's Suite for Strings, which was followed by Jeff Midkiff's Mandolin Quintet #2 and Dvorak's Serenade for Strings. I didn't expect much from the Midkiff as I had been completely underwhelmed by the one work I had heard previously. I was surprised because I liked the first half of the concert far more than the second half. The Smyth was delightful and full of energy. It was a lovely romantic work that in places reminded me very much of Dvorak, and made me wonder if that was part of the reasoning behind its placement on the program. This was also a bit of conundrum because it was written too early to have been influenced by Dvorak's later works, and yet I felt (or imagined) a strong connection between this early Smyth and late Dvorak. Anyway, this had me wondering if there had been any Smyth music performed in the Dvorak and His World program at the Bard Music Festival decades ago. But I am terrible at remembering those things, terrible at saving papers, and was not blogging then, so I have no point of reference..

The Midkiff completely surprised me. The mandolin Quintet #2 "Gypsy" had a strong, even thrilling opening with a chromatic melody carried by the violins over an almost droning reverberation from the cellos. It was fully satisfying both intellectually and emotionally. A fiery and turbulent work, with alternating passages of "gypsy" and "folk" passages, this was a far more rewarding introduction to the composer. Dynamic and sophisticated, with complex harmonics, it completely changed my impressions of Midkiff's work, enough so that I would now seek this music out.

And that leaves reading matters.

2023 Booklist:
1. The Invisible Kingdom. Meghan O'Rourke
2. Everything Good will Come. Self Atta
3. The Secret Servant. Daniel Silva.
4. Pandemia. Alex Berenson
5. Where'd You Go, Bernadette. Maria Semple.
The Invisible Kingdom and Pandemia are both non-fiction and are outside my purview for reviews. That leaves three novels.

I have been working my way through Daniel Silva's Gabriel Allon novels, and read this one, number 7, in January. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The books contain enough history and historical fiction to prove both thought-provoking and compelling. They are not high-literature, nor are they for the squeamish, but I thoroughly enjoy them and I find the character of Allon fascinating and all too human.

Where'd You Go Bernadette was a reread for a book club. It is a light, effective, satire although it didn't quite hold up to a second reading. I still love Bernadette and her daughter. The first time I read the novel, this is what I wrote: "the aspect of this novel I enjoyed the most may be the way the author portrays the tyranny of those without imagination." I think I still have nothing further to add.

But the book that really captured my imagination, and which I still find cropping up in my thoughts is Nigerian author Sefi Attar's Everything Good Will Come. I rarely write reviews of the novels I read on the websites where I catalog my library and reading lists (Goodreads) and (LibraryThing), but this time I did. Even here though, I am not interested in writing a proper review, and this too is rough and unedited. A step beyond my journal notes, perhaps, I am only interested in my own impressions, and what resonated in the book with me, not some grand analysis of the book's worth or meaning.

Mardel's (rough) review from Library Thing:

Everything Good Will Come is a novel about Enitan, a child of Nigeria, a child of privilege, a child who becomes a young woman, who through the process of fulfilling one dream, the dream of becoming a mother also fulfills another dream, one that had existed, unspoken, but constantly present in her inner unrest — the dream of becoming not just a woman, but a person who decides for herself, not just accepting the decisions others make for her — the dream of becoming a citizen.

Much of the beginnings of the book are rooted in Enitan's childhood, in her friendship with Sheri, and in the ways she is both sheltered and privileged. In some ways the book seems like two novels, the novel of the young Enitan and Sheri, which occupies the first two sections of the novel, and a second novel about Enitan's road to self-actualization. In truth the first part is just the necessary underlayment for the second, but the reader may be surprised by the shift, and it does in fact take some time for the structure to play out, and the interleaving of thoughts, memories, stories, to coalesce.

I personally found the last portion of the novel to be the strongest but I can admit that it took some time and patience for me to grow into the rhythm of the narrative. Enitan is not always likable, but she is human, and thoughtful, and kind. She is also argumentative, and she struggles with her own demons, her thoughts often sabotaging her own happiness.

Her father always told her that people have choices. He didn't say that those choices were equal, in his world-view they were not. But Enitan also realizes that choice is a "condition of the mind" and that most of the time "I was as conscious of making choices as I was of breathing." As are most of us.

Atta takes care to show us how Enitan's thoughts and actions develop and evolve, often in small steps, often repeating and circling back upon themselves. How she struggles with her own internal dialogue about separating the personal from the political, the way that life is compartmentalized in her milieu, and her gradual realization that she cannot separate the two, that the personal and the political are one and the same.

There are flaws in the narrative, spaces where the prose shimmers with light, and other places where this reader stumbles. I can see how readers may become lost in the weeds, but through it all, I do think Sefi Atta achieves something marvelous here, and the book is well worth reading.

Favorite passage:
"When people speak of turning points in their lives it makes me wonder. I can't think of one moment that me me an advocate for woman prisoners in my country. Before this, I had opportunities to take action, only to end up behaving in ways I was accustomed; courting the same old frustrations because I was sure of what I would feel: wronged, helpless, stuck in a day when I was fourteen years old. Here it is: changes came after I made them, each one small. I walked up a stair. Easy. I took off a head wrap. Very Easy. I packed a suitcase, carried it downstairs, put it in my car. When situations became trickier my tasks became smaller. My husband asked why I was leaving him. "I have to," I replied. three words; I could say them. "What kind of woman are you?" Not a word. "Wouldn't you have tried to stop me too?" he asked. Probably, but he wouldn't have had to leave me to do what he wanted.
February 23, 2023
Joy. A Reflection.

A few weeks ago, attending a small birthday celebration among friends, the birthday girl asked the members of the party to reflect on the year that was coming to a close. When it was my turn to speak, another friend interrupted and deflected the conversation into another topic. I was a little put off, and a few minutes later was talking to a third friend, telling her what a positive experience the past year had been, when she asked that I wait and share my comments with the group. And yet, when the topic came up again, I was once again interrupted, and the birthday girl was distracted with another unrelated conversation. I never did get a chance to speak.

In some ways this conversation, with all its attendant frustrations, is a mirror for my year, and, in fact, much of what I was hoping to say that evening. I can state upfront that at that moment I felt unheard, and uncared-for, as if my year and my thoughts were somehow less valid than anyone else's. But that was also a fleeting feeling, and like so many disappointments in life, one can either hang onto a momentary flash of negative emotion, letting it shape and color your being, or one can simply release it into the air and let it go. I chose the latter, just as I chose, despite a year that many would consider challenging, to see it as a good year, chose to count my blessings rather than my losses.

In fact, what I was going to say that evening was not about cancer or struggle or how hard the year had been; everyone in that room knew what I had been through, knew my struggles and that was not the time to reiterate them. What I had actually been about to say was that through my experience I had been offered an opportunity, and in a way a blessing, because I was forced out of the comfort zone of habit. Habits are not always to our benefit. It was only through the process of falling apart that I was able to realize the possibility of rebuilding, of rebirth if you will. I am in fact happier today than I was at this time last year; I am happier today than I was two years ago. That does not mean the road was easy; in fact it was damn difficult at times. But no one ever promised any of us an easy road, and the more mature I become the more I see that ease and comfort often hamper growth and creativity. I would not wish cancer on anyone. But at the same time, increasingly, neither would I wish anyone bland comfort and ease. There is something in our essence as Homo Sapiens that needs to be challenged, that needs to create, and the process of creation is a process born of destruction. We cannot live up to our full potential without constantly dislodging ourselves from the dead-ends life has imposed on us, no, that we have imposed upon ourselves.

In retrospect I saw that my friend, fearing I my comments would be something of a "downer" was deflecting, as she had been reared to do, steering the conversation away from unpleasantness and toward idle chatter. Of course this did mean that my thoughts went unheard; it also meant that on some level she expected something less of me than I was going to offer. But it also presented an opportunity for forgiveness. I realized that my thoughts were no less valid for not being heard. Yes, we all want to feel heard, and that is an important part of feeling loved. The crime was not really against me, but against herself and the others. In choosing to deflect, she was choosing not to engage on a personal level, to live on a surface level, which is both her choice, and her loss. Yes, she was protecting herself from despair, but she was also closing herself off from the possibility of joy. The simple truth is that all of our words deserve to be heard. And by shutting down each others words we close ourselves off to the possibility of connection, and ultimately to joy and through joy, hope.

For that, it seems is one of the things I have learned this year, perhaps one of the many things I have known in my head for a long time, but which I have not always practiced in my heart, is that life is short, that I am very lucky, and that it behooves us all to treasure and hold onto joy. Joy has nothing to do with the trials of life; and although it often does us good to rail against pain and affliction, holding onto our grief, our anger and our sadness does us no good. When we cannot manage hope, we can still find joy. Through joy we can often find happiness and love. Holding onto joy teaches us that there are things we can let slip away, that forgiveness is not difficult once we let go of pain. Taking even hesitant steps toward joy starts us on a path that can lead us to finding hope in a world that occasionally seems devoid of just that.

In the past two years the median life expectancy in the US has dropped by 1.5 years. Regardless of the numbers, no single one of us is guaranteed anything, to live to the median, or beyond it. And yet this reminds me of something. The median life expectancy of an American is roughly slightly over 4100 weeks, perhaps less by these new calculations. I have already lived over 3200 of those weeks. No matter how I look at it, I am on the downward slope. It is easy when we are young to think we always have time, but it is not true. Most of my time is already in the past. When we look at years it all seems so far away; when I look at weeks, it all seems so short. I want my weeks to be about joy, whatever joy I am finding in the moment of that particular week. Last week it may have been about family. This week joy revolves around friends and fabric and creative endeavors. If I am lucky I have 900 more weeks, perhaps more, perhaps less. But the luck isn't in the number of weeks; it is in how I chose to live those weeks. The gift is that I can chose who I want to be. I can chose joy. It is not about what happens, or even time itself, but what I chose to make of my time in my life.

I choose joy.

January 1, 2022
Branching Out
The concert season has begun again. I missed the first symphony concert; it was too close to my last chemo and I was still feeling too vulnerable to sit in a concert hall filled with people, even masked vaccinated people. My immune system was still too fragile. It still is fragile, but growing stronger and I have been venturing out more. It is necessary. Isolation is a deadly as disease. Even for a basically introverted person like myself, there can come a point when life becomes too small, too isolated, when one becomes disconnected. I've been wanting to sell everything and flee, become nomadic, and I realize this is not about anything really but my own need to begin regaining a life outside the small confines of health issues and pandemics and various whatnots that have making me feel constrained, and that running never solves anything because the frustrations we are trying to escape are always the ones that are glued most deeply to our psyches.

There were two chamber music concerts within a few days of each other actually. The first, my first concert of this season, was the Knoxville Chamber Classics and it featured two works that had been transcribed for a chamber orchestra. The first was Jessie Montgomery's Strum, a work I heard performed by the Providence String Quartet in its original, cello quintet, version. I have also heard it in quartet form but failed to record the specifics of when, where, or by whom. But that was many years ago, and I understood from the program that not only has the quartet been revised, but that Montgomery had also arranged a string-orchestra version, which is what we heard on October 3rd. The piece was still charmingly familiar and delightfully performed, the pizzicato strumming providing texture to musical themes reminiscent of sparkling flashes of light washing through the room. Quite a joyous way to return to concert listening.

The second familiar piece made new was Tchaikovsky's String Quartet No. 1, which had been arranged by Christopher Theofanidis for chamber orchestra. The quartet itself is a beloved piece that I know quite well, and although I may have been a tad cautious, there was no need. The transcription itself was beautifully done, and Theofandis deft use of the woodwind section to add texture and melodic richness to the strings was brilliant. The second movement, which is particularly poignant when well performed was particularly well written, and brilliantly performed, leaving me on the verge of tears.

Three nights later a smaller ensemble performed in the concertmaster series at the Knoxville Museum of Art. The first half of the program was brilliant, with William Shaub on violin and Kevin Class on piano. Although I loved every piece and sat on the edge of my seat, lost in the music, I was particularly taken by the two works by Fritz Kreisler, and yes, not that long ago I would have thought I would never write such words. Kreisler is not my favorite composer. Heretofore I would said he leans too heavily toward schmaltz, but now I also wonder how much of that is expectation in interpretation. Shaub revealed crisp melodies warmth and an emotional depth I did not anticipate, without any of the dreaded schmaltz. The second half of the evening was filled with the Mendelssohn String Quintet No. 2 in B-flat. I felt the third movement, where the first violin takes a strong melodic lead and the ensemble played with a responsiveness that felt like it was leaning more toward a symphonic temperament than traditional chamber form, was particularly effective and beautifully played.

What a relief and joy these concerts were to my soul, and they have at least temporarily stalled my dreams of flight behavior, but as I said that is not a statement of anything definite or permanent, just a reactionary phase to the intense changes of the last year.

Also, slowly but surely, because I needed to get beyond just functioning, I have started playing in the kitchen again. Oh I needed to eat, and I cooked in a functional sense, in that I put food on my plate. But starting in September I also felt the urge to start trying new things again. I rejoined a cookbook club on Facebook, one I had participated in a couple of years back, and started trying a few new recipes from their September book, which I got from the local library Cook With Me by Alex Guarnaschelli, and trying a few things that had been languishing in my own files, or in other cookbooks that have been collecting dust on the shelves. Scattered throughout this post are photos from my experiments. Most were not a full dinner — I did not often have that much energy. But the energy spent in cooking filled a creative vacuum, one that was particularly sharp as there was a period where my hands were not up to knitting or needlework.

Shown are the following:
- Daikon Curry; recipe from Saveur Magazine.
- Chilled Carrot Soup from Cook with Me.
- Chili-Mint Sautéed Cucumbers from The Broad Fork by Hugh Acheson.
- Grilled Zucchini and Charred Pepper Salad from Cook with Me.
- Spice Ruby Red Cabbage Steak from Cook With Me.
- Chicken Parmesan from Cook with Me.
- Halibut Braised in Ginger Lemongrass Broth from In the Hands of a Chef by Jody Adams.
My most recent musical outing was to attend the Met Live broadcast of Boris Godunov last Saturday. On a screen, not a stage in front of me, but fabulously well done. It is one of my favorite operas, and at least a part of that is the way that the opera is both intimate and epic, the way it takes on grand themes of Russian history in a really rather complex, and complexly moving narrative with great music too boot. Seeing that performance had me dreaming of opera again, although I realize I am not an opera lover per se. I love opera, but don't love opera for its own sake, and the music has to be as good as the performance. I am fortunate to live in a town with three opera companies, although I only attend the performances of two of those organizations: the smaller one and the university based one. I do not attend the performances of the third because I find their performances bore me to tears. In short, I am still, perhaps always, coming to terms with my own bias and expectations; I am spoiled, and my inner critic tends to get the last word. I actually don't seek perfection, it is not all its cracked up to be, better a spectacular failure in a daring attempt than boring blandness any day. But this is true not just of music, or art, or anything really, including my own successes and failures, or perceived successes and failures, and finding some balance between head and heart is a complex and never ending struggle. Sometimes I think the reality is exactly the opposite of whatever we perceive it to be, blinded as we are by our own history.

I haven't yet started cooking from this month's book, Dishoom by Shamil and Kavi Thakrar and Navid Nasir, although I have been happily reading the extensive text and dreaming. Primarily I have been too tired to take on the recipes, although I hope to make something before the month ends. I am slow-roasting the spices for their version of Garam Masala, which is different than the version I have made for years, as I write this, so there is hope for Indian food exploration soon. I still need to make a trip to the Indian grocery. Why have these simple tasks taken on such weight? No, no, please don't tell me.

More cooking? Or is some other stone waiting to be unturned?
October 13, 2021
Three Things That Make Me Smile

Yesterday was an unmitigated disaster.

But rather than dwell on that, I shall share a few happy bits.

New red birkies. These make me inordinately happy. They make me so happy that i wonder why i thought I couldn't pull off white patent birkenstocks a few summers ago. Are they still cool? Or was white a passing fad? Ooh the possibilities.

Last Friday I went to hear Tessa Lark play Michael Torke's Sky with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra. I was so hungry for live music that I went even though I did not feel well, and as much as loved hearing live music, my evening was a struggle. I had not heard this piece before and I wished I had. Usually I find new music exciting — both emotionally and intellectually stimulating, but on this evening I could not connect the notes I was hearing to a pattern. It was as if some some essential part of my wiring had temporarily shorted. By Saturday I had figured out that this was a not-unheard-of effect of the particular mix of drugs I am on at the moment. For a person who considers reading and writing an essential part of her nature, as well as listening to music, this was difficult the most difficult aspect of chemo. And yet, this week, restored, I have been listening to Tessa Lark playing Sky on YouTube again and again. It is a happy piece and I am happy to have been introduced to it.

The Shady Patio. It is a bit hot at mid-day for me to spend time here now, but at the waxing and waning of the day this is where you are most likely to find me. Listening to the birds. Perhaps doing nothing at all.

May 27, 2021
A Few Things That Made Me Happy

Working this colorful wrapped stitch in Prism lace weight linen.

The beauty of the fallen Japanese maple leaves on the ground cover below.

A simple salad supper, a craving one evening despite the cold weather. A salad inspired by Yotam Ottolenghi, adapted for rose celery from GirlnDug farm. Shrimp. Feta. Happiness.

More autumn color. Ginkgo leaves have really captured my imagination this year, especially the way the color seems to concentrate the autumn light, but I had never been able to capture any fragment of that sense in a photo. Until this one taken in the waning afternoon light.

This week I learned that one reason my eyes were always tired is that my prescription had changed, and was in fact too strong for me. One eye no longer needs a prescription for distance vision, and the other only a slight prescription. We decided to see how I would adapt if I tried to return to contacts, this time wearing only one, for reading, while my stronger distance eye went uncorrected. Bonus: For the first time in years I can actually see to put on makeup. But I am not yet sure I am used to seeing my face without the protective layer that glasses provide. Not yet certain how this will work, or if I will be back in my glasses in a couple of weeks, but the irony is worth noting with a bit of self-compassion. When I stopped wearing contacts and started wearing bifocals, I missed my face; now, I miss my glasses and feel exposed.

Snipping a few herbs early one morning I was entranced by the frost on the leaves of oregano and chervil.

Music has not stopped. Although I still miss live performance, zoom has been wonderful. I have subscribed to the Norwegian Digital Jazz Festival through the Big Ears website, and I listened to this concert earlier this week. I have replayed it at least once (one of the advantages of zoom, although I still miss the way the vibrations of music in the air change a space). The Eivind Aarset Quartet is more to my taste, but I still found Hedvig Mollestad fascinating and enlightening with the way their music seems to dance on a precipice, blurring lines between free jazz, heavy rock and prog. At times powerful, occasionally beautiful, certainly perception-changing. Tonight Big Ears is presenting a concert by the Bad Plus and I am looking forward to it.

I finished the bottom trim on the boxy linen tee and I have to admit I love the way it is turning out. This is not exactly how the pattern was written, as four colors were used in the sweater, but I only have 3 remaining. It took me a little fiddling to align the three colors in a way I found pleasing, but now I am happy with the results. I have not finished the neckline yet simply because Poncho decided to move up in the world, advancing from lying at my feet, to joining me on the sofa. I approve, but Moises is not yet convinced. There were a couple of evenings in front of the tv, dog on one side, cat on the other and no knitting in between.

And there it is, actually a pretty good representation of my week. Not much happened. Not much needs to happen. Life is good.

December 4, 2020